Monday, June 25, 2012

In Which I Become a Disney Princess

        I've been looking forward to the movie Brave for months now. First of all because the heroine has curly red hair, and secondly because the heroine has curly red hair. Friday, I had a rather long work day (more on work later), and when I finally got home, I discovered my family had disappeared, so I decided to have a nice, quiet evening all to myself. I put my jammies on and was on the brink of ordering a pizza when my dear friend, Joy, called me. Our conversation went something like this,
"Hey, Pip, we'regonnagoseeBraveatthedrive-in. Wanna come?"
To which I responded, "Sure"
So I put my clothes back on, and ran out to their van. As I opened the door about 3 people fell out. They were kind enough to scooch over, so I could squeeze in. We stopped to pick up an insane amount of pizza, soda, and other goodies, as well as another friend, and then we set off. As we drove along the very twisty country roads, Joy's mom remarked,
"We've got any teenage boy's dream in the back seat. Girls, pizza, and soda."

        We got to the drive-in two daylight filled hours early. Within seconds a blanket, lawn chairs (in a second parking spot for Joy's dad), food, music, and an enormous amount of people disembarked on to the grass. We looked like a gypsy-block party-circus. I was just waiting for the Secret Seven to turn up and convict us of an imaginary crime.

     We had a really fantastic time, which was helped along by the fact that no one could park in front of us because some hornets had conveniently made a nest in that particular speaker. Of course, Joy had to hop up every six seconds to explain the situation to all the people who kept trying to park there.

     The movie was also incredibly cute. In fact, I'm taking the two youngest siblings to see it this afternoon. In exactly two hours, as they keep reminding me. So I'm going to spend my day off in a dark movie theater "bonding" with my brother and sister. 

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Having a Nice Holiday....




That's a bit of an understatement, actually... I am having a wonderful holiday at the beach with my family. After the stress of finals and camp, it is so nice to have some quiet time on the beach. It is also nice to be with my family because I rarely get to see them during the school year. This vacation has also been wonderful because of some news I got on Saturday.

Right as we pulled into the driveway of the house we're renting for the week, I got two texts from two very close friends, and they read, "Congratulation on making Dean's List!" During Fall Semester I really struggled with my grades and passing all my classes was a big accomplishment for me. Spring Semester, I had one major goal- to qualify to keep my financial aid. So when grades came out, I was very excited to not only have accomplished that goal but also to have done very well in all my classes. I had no idea that I would ever be on the Dean's List. I thought that only super smart physics majors and people with no social lives made Dean's List. Basically, I never thought I would make the cut. It just goes to show what our Heavenly Father can do!

So now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my week, hoping not to get too sunburned. See you soon!

*If you didn't get the Chicken Run reference, never mind. 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Camp

You all will be glad to know that I survived my week at Camp Cheery. For the first few days it looked as though my lack of sorority-ness would doom me to failure, but I actually had a really great week. Orientation was the hardest part. I was staying with 9 girls who were my exact opposites or at least led very different lives from mine. I felt like I did when I was that weirdo at school. I was not at in a sorority, and the only intense parties I attended this year were study parties. By the end of the first day I was ready to leave. But things looked up pretty quickly, I bonded with the 2 other non-sorority counselors, and we had a really great, really dorky time during orientation.

Once the campers arrived, things really started to look up. My co-counselor and I had the best cabin! They went to bed early; none of them were homesick, and we only had one small behavior issue. By the end of the week my ego was so inflated it was insane. I was basically skipping around camp going, "Who's a great counselor?  This kid! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!" In my head that is. I really try not to be blatantly prideful/obnoxious. 

Anyway, being a camp counselor has a whole lot of job satisfaction. All my little girls were very sweet. One day they brought me a slightly squashed day lily because they knew it was my favorite. They hastened to explain that they had found it on the ground, so it was okay, right? Even my one behavior problem turned out to be a very sweet, albeit very sad, little girl. In fact, when I had the chance to talk to her one on one, I found that she was a very smart, thoughtful kid who just needed a little more attention. 

This same girl, whom I'll call Becky, was probably the kid who made my job seem really important. At all the meetings before camp opened, the directors would say things like, "You will never know the impact you will have on these girls' lives." And I thought, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But Becky made me realize that what they said was true. From the start, Becky was a handful. She was loud, never listened, and seemed to have a knack for riling up the other girls. I was about to lose patience with her when something happened. The ringtennis coach (I'm not 100% sure what ringtennis is either), came up to my co-counselor and me and told us that she had had the girls going around the circle saying their names, where they were from, and why they had come to camp. Becky, after giving her name, had informed the group that she was there because her parents "needed a break." 

Immediately Becky's behavior became understandable to me. If her parents had that attitude about sending her to camp  no wonder she was trying to attract attention. This is the only part of  camp that truly made me unhappy: I had a week to prove to these girls that they are loved, something which their parents are not willing to show them in a lifetime.  Honestly getting the chance to treat Becky like the intelligent, sweet little girl that she is made my week-long job (and puny paycheck), seem worth it.